8 GREAT WEITE-GBE8TEE GOOKATOO. 
pair, of a dull orange red, otherwise the birds are exactly similar in 
size and appearance, and are exceedingly handsome to look at, but 
awfully noisy: their shrieks being audible, on a calm day, at an immense 
distance, so much so that when they are flying so high up in the air 
as to be actually inwisible to the unassisted eye, their voices can yet 
be distinctly heard, somewhat modified and mellowed by distance, it is 
true, but far too loud, even then, to be agreeable. Their ordinary cry 
is a repetition of their own name, Cock-a-too, Cock-a-too!” and a 
yell that is best represented by the syllables “Cur-rah!"’ much emphasis 
being laid upon the latter, which is terrifically loud, and when angry 
or excited they vociferate these discordant notes an almost unlimited 
number of times. 
Occasionally one of these birds will learn to pronounce a few words 
with tolerable distinctness, but their forte lies in the imitation of the 
barking of dogs, the crowing of cocks, the “gobbling"" of turkeys, and 
the cackling of ducks, hens, and geese: but more particularly in the 
rendering, with much fidelity, but in an exaggerated key, the noisy 
outcries of a domestic fowl that has just produced an egg, and is vain- 
gloriously proclaiming the achievement to her companions. They may 
be readily taught to throw up their wings, dance on their perch, hold 
out a foot to shake hands, and bow their heads in salutation of a visitor. 
There is no perceptible difference between the sexes, except in the 
colour of the irides, but the female, perhaps, is a trifle less noisy than 
her mate. Like all the rest of the Parrot family, with a few doubtful 
exceptions, these birds make their nests in hollow trees, where the 
female deposits two or three white eggs, which are hatched in twenty- 
one days: the young grow very slowly, and are quite three years 
old before they reach maturity : there is, generally, only one brood in 
a season. 
As the Great White Cockatoos are neither delicate, nor difficult to 
keep, although natives of a sultry clime, it ought to be quite possible 
to breed them in captivity : but if it were desired to make the attempt, 
the cage, or aviary rather, provided for their reception, would require 
to be made of rods of iron of almost the same size and strength as 
those employed in the construction of a lion"s den, for nothing else, 
we feel assured, would be able to resist the contimral assaults of those 
tremendous engines of destruction, the beaks of a pair of Great White 
Cockatoos. 
The general custom in Germany is to give these birds a spacious 
cage in the form of a bell, from the top of which is hung a metal ring, 
in which they like to sit and swing themselves, the oscillating move- 
ment probably reminding them of the swaying to and fro of the branches 
